The Pen is Mightier than the Sword

Getting a late start today – it was good to sleep in a little. So many distractions. The sun is out and the fall earth smells good. The cafe is noisy and filled with crying kids. My dog needs walking. I’m buzzing with static. LOL. This is just how it is sometimes. Some days for […]

It’s day 3 of Nanowrimo. 5,880 words total so far. (Making time because who knows how much I can write over Thanksgiving travels.) Today, I wrote my big battle scene – the one that has me scared and shaking in my boots. How does a pacifist write a battle scene? LOL. Well…all I can say […]

This year, I’m doing NaNoWriMo for the first time – for both the fun and the discipline. Woke up this morning at 6 a.m. and wrote 3,800 words. So happy. Is there such a genre as eco-historical fiction with a supernatural twist? Like a martini with coconut and lime. – M.G.

It has been a fun and busy summer. I taught 4 creative writing classes for kids in the vibrant Oak Park Arts District Summer Camp. It was a joyous time! My favorite moments: Seeing one student gripped by her imagination and shaking from the excitement of the Story that was unfolding on the Page. […]

Harpist Lillian Lau and flutist Ellen Huntington are an elegant duo with a mission to reinvigorate interest in music composed specifically for harp and flute. Ellen is an award-winning Instructor of Flute at North Park University, a soloist, chamber musician teacher, and orchestral musician. Lillian is an orchestral musician, educator, solo harpist, and chamber recitalist […]

Today, I’m in the final push…to really lock-in what I know and what I don’t know about my historical characters. So, for the last 2 weeks, it’s been a headlong rush into titles that are found regionally in Cebu – which is fabulous, except that I live in Chicago. What can a fictionist in the diaspora do?

For me, the natural world is a place of healing & freedom. It is messy, ever changing, and holds so many spiritual lessons. I run to the woods when I’m sad…I hike through the woods when I’m excited to be alive. Recently, our Lola Mading (Grandmother Mading) crossed-over to the Other Side. She was 94 […]

We were in Japan for 3 weeks this summer which was a wondrous journey of extremes: from the neon, buzz and bullhorns, and manga-mania of Electric Town in Tokyo to the mist-covered hills, sacred herd of deer, 1,000-year-old cedar tree, and the shrines and temples of Nara. It’s taking a while to get back into […]

The storm brought everyone outside: neighbors checking on each other, comparing notes, tsk-ing, and wondering at the downed trees, the debris-strewn street. I managed to sneak a post yesterday before ComEd shut everything down so they could address live wires and blown transformers. (Photos in yesterday’s post.) ABC News reported that there were 215,000 Chicagoans […]